Rest Stop Wisdom

by Joseph Stoutzenberger

At a rest stop along a Maryland highway I saw pasted on a bathroom stall a sticker that read: “You Are Loved.” I appreciated that some group went to the trouble to post its message there, and I have no doubt that they actually mean it. I understand that in women’s bathrooms a sticker is often found that reads: “If you are a victim of domestic abuse, call this hotline.” Again, it’s a message showing that some people care for others, even strangers, and that people in need are not alone. I started to think of other brief messages that could be posted in these sanctuaries of the highways. “Be Kind.” “You are not alone.” “God rides with you.” “Choose wisely.” Or the line seen in television commercials about Jesus lately: “He gets us.” Or a Japanese haiku to get us to ponder the choices we make: “Even among insects—some can sing, some can’t.”

Many of the world’s great books have a journey theme: Odyssey, Aeneid, Exodus in the bible, Dante’s Divine Comedy, Canterbury Tales, and Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn come to mind. Then there are films such as “Sullivan’s Travels” and “Easy Rider,” about encounters while traversing the country, and songs such as “Woodstock,” about walking along the road to the promised land. I was pleased to see a Gideon’s bible in a drawer in the Virginia hotel I stayed in recently. It is one more gesture of reaching out and demonstrating care for strangers, a group offering a book filled with stories spanning creation of the world to its final destination. As we travel our own journey through life, we need all the wisdom we can find, and we need all the help we can get.

Early Christians were called simply “followers of the way.” Jesus offered wisdom to help people along their way. One teaching, “Love one another,” is as basic as it gets; but it’s an essential message that should be posted on billboards and bathroom walls. For Christians, Jesus’s words “I go before you” offer hope when navigating the twists and turns all of us inevitably face. Jesus was a trailblazer in that journey. In another religious tradition, a woman, distraught with grief over her son’s death, asks Buddha what words of comfort he could offer in her misery. The Buddha told her to visit every home in her village, and when she found one that had not experienced sorrow, she should place a mustard seed in her hand. When her hand was filled, she should return to him and he would provide insight into her grief. Of course, after hearing tales of woe from every family in her environs, the woman still had no seeds in her hand, but she knew about the universality of suffering and learned compassion. Islam is also all about emulating the compassion of God, who is constantly called all-loving and all-merciful, in our interactions with fellow travelers along life’s highway.

Jesus’s early followers were awaiting the coming of God’s reign, and they committed to caring for one another as they made their way to their true home. Their journey, as well as ours, was unique. Which is not the same as saying that we travel alone. As bathroom stalls remind us that there are people out there who want to help, hopefully every church, mosque, synagogue, and temple has the same message. Certainly, Jesus bequeathed that message to those he called friends. We share our journey with everyone with whom we cross paths, as well as with all those we never meet. Someone picked those strawberries we enjoy, even though we never met them. What message are others sending our way? What is our message to them? “You are loved” is a good place to start.